School!
by JayceePhantom
Summary: The ninja slack off in their ninja-y duties, so (naturally) Sensei Wu takes matters into his own hands and... sends them back to High School! What sorts of chaos will ensue! This story is a cooperation between AreiaCananaid and JayceePhantom. We hope you like it! Read&Review!
1. Sensei say what now?

**School?**

**Disclaimer: Neither AreiaCananaid or JayceePhantom owns Ninjago... though we can dream, right?**

Kai, Cole, Zane, and Jay were playing videogames in their one-room apartment in Ninjago City, just goofing off, when Sensei Wu, the ninja's teacher and, well, Sensei, came in. Sensei frowned at their rectulance to work and train, as he had noticed their goofing off.

"Ninja! You have been shirking out on your training,"" Sensei Wu scolded.

"But, Sensei, we've been train-" Kai protested, trying to no avail to defend himself-and his brothers.

"Yes, I know that you've been training Lloyd, but not yourselves. You have not been at the top of your game. I have been watching you carefully and have noticed that you haven't been training yourselves, so I have taken it upon myself to punish your lackadaisical attitudes," Sensei Wu said.

This time Cole protested. "With all due respect, Sensei, when we are done training Lloyd we are exhausted."

"That is not true and you know it, I have seen you go out and use as much energy as you would training, I have seen Kai daydream and sometimes act them out." Sensei retorted.

Everybody looked to Kai; he gave an embarrassed smile and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

Sensei continued, "Zane meditates, and Jay invents little things, as you can see none of you are actually keeping yourselves at the top of your game."

Jay opened his mouth to disagree but Sensei Wu cut him off with a wave of his hand, "So, I have found a fitting punishment," He paused waiting for the ninjas' reactions.

"Do we have to run across all of Ninjago in 3 weeks?" Kai asked, completely and utterly horrified.

Sensei smirked and shook his head. "No, but that is a good idea," he said, making a mental note.

"Kai!" Cole yelled.

"Sorry!" Kai yelped.

"Is the punishment caring 500 pounds for 3 days straight?" Jay wondered aloud.

"No, but that is als-"

Kai grew impatient and cut off Sensei Wu's sentence by yelling, "What is the punishment?"

Sensei chuckled, "Your punishment, ninja, is to go to Ninjago City High School."

The ninja looked at Sensei with their faces aghast.

-_-_-_-_- LINE BREAK-_-_-_-_-_-

"I can't go back there! It's torturous!" Jay complained as he paced the floor of their small apartment.

Sensei Wu, Lloyd and Nya said that they were going to a shop to get more tea and they wouldn't be back 'til the day's end.

"I dropped out to help my parents maintain the junk yard, I just can't go back, I will be way behind," Jay ranted, continuing to pace, his softer features angry.

"Well, I dropped out too! I didn't have time to go to school. I had barely enough time to make ends meet enough to keep Nya and me alive!" Kai fumed on his makeshift table bed, his fair face scrunched up in rage, "I would be _so _screwed if I went back. I can't believe..." he trailed off. What with his elemental power being fire, Kai's stormy mood was making him give off smoke. Cole and Zane were looking on amusedly at Kai.

Zane, who was lying down on his bed reading a book, looked up at Kai. Zane's normally sharp-enough-to-cut features were the picture of confusion as he muttered, "Make ends meet?"

"It's a figure of speech, Zane." Kai answered through his teeth, still pacing and fuming at his Sensei.

"Oh," Zane said in understanding. "I hate figures of speech," he grumbled to himself.

Cole, who was sitting on his bed, the windowsill, said, "My dad took me out of school so I could go to the Marty Oppenheimer _School_ of Performing Arts and follow in his footsteps. I don't want to go back to school, ever! I have had enough of it," he stated, outraged.

There was a silence when the ninja thought back to their past school experience, if someone was to walk in they would have been able to feel he irritation radiating off the ninja in waves.

"What about you Zane? Why did you drop out?" Cole asked breaking the angry silence.

Everybody looked to Zane, waiting for his reply.

"I was bullied every minute at school for being weird; I got sick of it and dropped out after the midterm." Zane murmured, looking down embarrassedly.

"I'm sorry Zane," Kai said apologetically, "I know how it feels, I was bullied at school too, for not being with or liking the popular groups and smart mouthing the bullies, but not as bad as you. I know what it is like to be late to class because you have to put up your stuff, having your face slammed into a locker door and a whole bunch of other stuff," Kai smirked, "but I always got revenge, they never knew what hit them."

"Did you ever go to the Principal's Office?" Jay asked intrigued, who had finally stopped pacing to sit on his bed (the 2nd real bed in the apartment.)

"Me? Get caught? Never," he said clearly pleased with himself, "I was always very sneaky, stealthy and patient. I guess I was always meant to be a ninja," Kai said the last sentence with a stupid face and a lisp, which made everybody laugh.

"Were you ever vindictive Zane?" Kai queried.

"No, I never did," Zane responded.

"Well since Sensei isn't here and we have some time to kill, I say we listen to some of the revenge schemes Kai has done in school," Cole said.

"Shouldn't we be training though?"Zane inquired.

"Nah, we can lie," Jay said, "I don't know about you but I want to hear what he did to lighten my dark mood."

Zane reluctantly agreed.

"Okay," Kai started, "there was this one time that I found a sleeping herb in the forest on the way to school. I took it there and put it in one of the bullies milk, he fell asleep in class and stayed asleep for the rest of the day, he then got suspended for a month, because this was strike three, the first two that got blamed on him were…"

Kai continued his telling of his schemes until it was night, getting a lot of laughs from his brothers as he dramatically told them, "even when one of them realized that it was me, they never had enough information to pin on the most awesome, most amazing and the most sagacious Kai. They did not have the sheer brilliance I have."

Cole teasingly punched Kai in the arm, "you and your inflated ego."

Their playful banter ceased as Zane said, "I sense Sensei, Nya and Lloyd are nearby."

Cole quickly took charge, "Guys, put some water on your foreheads and everywhere you sweat to make it look like we have been training all day."

They rapidly followed his orders, just in the nick of time, too, seeing as Sensei Wu, Nya and Lloyd entered the apartment just as they finished.

"I see you have been training, good," the ninjas' faces brightened, "but you still are going to school." Kai, Cole, Zane, and Jay's happy faces fell.

"Dang it," he heard the ninja mutter.

"You are in luck; the school had four openings for the 11th grade, all with the same schedule. The only bad thing is, you will be behind in your studies, so I have arranged for a tutor during your free classes." Sensei explained. The ninja breathed a sigh of relief. They all were thinking, _well; at least we won't be so behind._

Sensei continued, "You will need to remember that nobody knows you are the ninja. Seeing as the Serpentine are still running amok, you will need to go to the Principal's office as soon as you arrive there and reveal your identities only to her. Principal Laya is an old friend of mine, and I told her you were coming."

"Poopsickles on a silver platter," Kai exclaimed.

"Really Kai, poopsickles?" Jay said tisk-tisk-ing him.

"Don't mock me," Kai teased, "it is my new exclamation."

"I could think of a better one in my sleep," Jay taunted.

"Well then, be my guest," Kai gestured to Jay's bed, "I wouldn't be surprised if you used it."

Over the course of the next three days, the ninja got ready for school, getting everything they would need.

Finally, the day the ninja had been dreading was nigh. They were at the doors of the school, the school that they had dropped out of years ago:

Ninjago City High School, 9th through 12th grade.

The day of torture was just beginning as they walked through the double doors, knowing that this was a long and hard day ahead of them, full of sadistic teachers who loved overloading kids with homework.

**SO, this chappie was written by AreiaCananaid! Next chapter will be by JayceePhantom! We hope you guys like it!**


	2. New names, new powers, and new problems

**AreiaCananaid: Sorry this took so long! I have been writing four stories at once! And lots of stories for my grammar class. So...yeah... I hope you enjoy this chapter, I'll try to get the next chapter out soon.**

"So we have to go to Principal Laya, tell her we are the ninja, get our schedule and names of our teachers and tutors, and then we start school, right?" Jay rambled.

"We know, we were there when Sensei told us," Kai growled, still angry at Sensei for making him go to school.

"I was saying that more for my benefit then yours," Jay clarified.

Cole and Zane chuckled.

The four disguised ninja trudged into the principal's office. The principal, Laya, was sitting at a desk, full of paperwork. She looked up from a report she was reading. "Ah, you must be the new students," principal Laya said with a friendly smile on her face. She winked at them, "So you are the ninja?" the ninja nodded. "It is an honor to have you in my school, even though you are not going as them. Sensei contacted me telling me that you would be coming and he said that you would be best if you were in the same classes at the same time. Keep this between you and me, but I had to suspend someone so all four of you could do that."

Zane gasped, "You mean you had to kick someone out?"

Laya waved the matter aside, "Eh, he was a bully and he got plenty of warning notes."

Jay could not keep his mouth shut anymore; he had to know, "How did you meet Sensei?"

She looked startled by Jay's random question before answering, "You have to ask him. I'll give you a hint though: there were bandits involved. Anyway, since I know that you can't be recognized as the ninja, I took the liberty of changing your names. I got two so you can choose the one you like best."

"What are they?" asked Kai.

Laya chuckled, "Cole your choices are either: Schist or Beau, Jay your choices are: Mockingbird or Palemon, Zane your choices are: Firn or Adimarr and Kai your choices are: Flame or Simitarr."

After a moment's pause Cole spoke up, "I choose Schist."

"A type of rock," Laya said.

He nodded his head.

"I like Simitarr," Kai said.

Zane said, "I know Firn means a dense pack of ice, and that is cool. I would choose it, but people might tease me and call me fern or something, so I choose Adimarr."

Everybody looked to Jay expectantly, "I don't know! I like both of the names, but I might as well choose, um, Palemon."

"Okay," Laya acknowledged. "I will send your names to your tutors, you will be with them for about 2 weeks before you will be able to catch up with everybody else and can go to normal school."

~o0o~

After Principal Laya told them their schedule with the tutors and their room numbers, they had left the office and headed to their first class: English Literature.

~o0o~

As they opened the door to the class they saw that there were two other students in the room.

The teacher looked away from the white board when they entered the room; she had long flaming red hair and kind green-y hazel eyes. "You must be the new students," she said pleasantly. "I am Ms. Kieran. Would you please introduce yourselves to the class?"

Jay stepped up first, "I'm Palemon."

Zane went next, "I am Adimarr."

Cole went 3rd, "My name is Schist."

Kai shrugged and said, "Name's Simitarr."

Ms. Kieran said, "These are my other students," she pointed to the boy on the right, he had short black hair, and even thought he was sitting down the ninja could tell he was tall and lanky. "That is Bryn."

She pointed to a girl with shoulder length black hair, "That is Stella. Your seats are right there," she pointed to four chairs that were behind the table that Ms. Kieran's students were sitting at.

The ninja obliged and hung their backpacks on the back of their chairs. Ms. Kieran spoke up again, "Let me go over the rules of my class. There will be no talking while I am speaking. You will write everything that is on the board. There will be no…"

She went over her rules, making the ninja repeat some to make them remember them better.

"Okay, now that that is over let's finish this class."

~o0o~

"Homework for today: Read chapters 1 to 10 in Pride and Prejudice, write a 3 page essay summary on every chapter, do the 5 worksheets…"

'That is insane!' Kai thought, 'So much homework and it's just one class! I wonder if the next classes will be like this.'

Kai glared at the sheet of paper that held the notes and all the homework sheets, it started smoking. His eyes went wide and the paper stopped, then he smirked and thought, 'I got to remember this for later.'

He wrote down the rest of the homework.

"Class is dismissed, I think your next class is Grammar," Ms. Kieran said.

Everybody put away their stuff in their backpacks and left the classroom.

Kai groaned, "I thought that class would never be over! And think! Grammar class is next! Why are all my least favorite classes today?"

"What are your favorite classes?" Cole asked.

"None," he said with a shrug. "It's just some are worse than others. Yours?"

"Same," answered Cole. "What are your favorite classes?" Cole asked Jay and Zane.

"I like chemistry and math," Jay said.

They looked to Zane, who replied quickly, "I like learning, but I think literature is my least favorite."

They stopped at a when there was three ways to go, "Which way Zane?" Cole inquired.

He pointed right and they headed that way.

"I am Mrs. Beckey, your grammar tutor," the teacher introduced. "I would like to see what you understand in this subject, so I will give you a quiz."

Cole, Kai and Jay bit back a groan as she passed out a piece of paper.

Kai looked at it and remembered helping and watching Nya do this at home. Zane looked at it and got it right away. Cole and Jay looked at it and only got the bare essentials.

When the quiz was over Mrs. Beckey took them back and looked over them. "You did really well," she complemented. "Let's start with identifying a sentence."

~o0o~

The rest of the day went at snail pace, the only interesting thing that happen was at the end of the day.

The disguised ninja were at their lockers putting all the stuff that they needed in their backpacks.

"Dude," Jay whined, "I think my backpack gained 10 pounds."

"Actually it gained 11.34 pounds," Zane said with humor in his in his voice.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here," an ominous voice said behind Zane, "a know-it-all. What do you think boys?"

Zane whirled around to face a big buff guy with two of his cronies standing behind him. "It looks like it," his cronies agreed. Both had snivelly voices that got on your nerves easily.

"Do you know what we do with know-it-alls?" the bully asked Zane.

"Probably something that does not require much brain power, I'm guessing," Zane said snidely.

The bully glared, "The Brandon does not like this smart mouth."

He drew a fist back to punch Zane. Zane froze, but before Brandon could throw the punch, a figure with a red sweatshirt and black pants went in front of him, "Why are you hurting my friend?"

Brandon spluttered, no one has ever stood up to him before, "Why not?" was the best he could come up with.

"No, no, that was a stupid answer," Brandon muttered to himself with a confused expression on his lack-wit face. "You wait right there until I come up with a decent comeback." He adopted a thoughtful expression and stuck his chubby finger in his stubby nose for extra help in his thinking. Then his face lit up with triumph. "Because I am the biggest, strongest, most popular person in the school, and I can. Also, I don't like his hair, and his eyes are a weird color, and I just don't like him. Plus, I must assert my dominance or people won't fear me," Brandon explained.

"I see your logic," the red sweatered boy nodded with an understanding expression. "Go right ahead sir."

"That's better," Brandon chuckled as the red sweater boy stepped out of his path. "And when I am finished with the know-it-all I am going to teach you a lesson as well."

"Good plan," the red sweater boy agreed obliviously, "I could definitely use a lesson."

"Kai," Zane hissed in a worried but angry tone.

As soon a Brandon took his attention off of Kai to attack Zane, Kai made his move. He pretended to lose his balance and 'accidentally' stuck out his foot, tripping the giant of a boy.

"Oh goodness, I am sooo sorry," Kai said giving the pretence of bending down to help but only causing more harm than good. "Oh dear, oh goodness, I seem to only be messing things up more I am so sorry. Perhaps if you hold still?" he said as he 'accidentally' delivered a nasty kick.

Brandon's minions could not decide what to do - after all, the red sweater boy was only trying to help wasn't he? They had just realized that he was playing a mean game and decided to attack the red sweatered teen.

"How dare you?" an imperious voice sounded. A boy with dark colored jeans and a black hoody ran up. "You three worms dare assault Brandon the Magnificent." To anyone else, his tone sounded revering, but to the ninja, thy caught an undertone of sarcasm as the boy bowed in a slightly mocking manner to the helpless bully. "Man, Brandon, you are a legend, you are my role model. Don't worry my lord, I will take care of the pest for you; no need for you to dirty your hand on scum such as this." With that, he picked up Kai with one hand and Zane and Jay with the other.

Brandon stood up trying to restore his dignity with bluster, "You make them pay dearly."

"Oh I will," Cole said, for it was none other than he, "I will throw them into the dumpster after I teach them a lesson. Anything for you my lord, I am at your service."

With thet he marched down the hall. Once he rounded the corner Kai spoke.

"Please put me down now Cole, you know I hate being man handled."

"But I promised to throw you in the dumpster," Cole teased.

**Remember the more reviews the sooner the next chapter gets out! Oh, and if you want something to happen review and I'll stick it in somewhere!**

**JayceePhantom: Hey guys. That was AreiaCananaid. I know that I was supposed to write the next chapter, but i honestly have very little experience writing Ninjago fanfictions. So, meanwhile, AeriaCananaid and I agreed that I could beta this story and watch it unfold lol :)**

**Bye!**


	3. A Daring Rescue

**New chapter! Thanks for the reviews, AreiaCananaid and I really appreciate them!  
-JayceePhantom **

"This is so boring!" yelled Kai. The ninja had started their homework and they were all doing their English literature and Kai had barely even started reading "Pride and Prejudice" before becoming bored. "I mean, just _listen_ to this: 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.' Ugh! How could somebody write something so boring?!" Kai fumed. "I hate romance, and all this book seems to have in it, is ROMANCE!"

"Eh, I don't find it so boring," Jay said as he looked up from his book. "Granted, it's a bit hard to understand sometime, but really not that bad."

"Well you like romance!" Kai pointed out indignantly.

Jay blushed and went back to reading his book, mumbling.

"I don't find it that bad either," Zane said.

Kai slammed his head on the table and mumbled incoherently something along the lines of 'I hate this book' repeatedly.

Jay, whose head had snapped up when he heard the smacking sound of Kai's head hitting the table, mockingly patted his brother's back. "It's okay. We all hate something," he said. Jay directed the next part to everyone in the room. "It seems as if Kai has a face that says, 'give me all the stuff I hate for homework'."

Kai's head whipped back up. His usual forest green eyes with gold flecks had suddenly changed colors with his mood. What with his anger and annoyance directed at Jay, his eyes had altered color to resemble shifting gold, somewhat like fire. "Shut up," he growled.

Cole, who had been peacefully ignoring the commotion in the room, slowly looked up, one eyebrow raised. "Jay, quit baiting him. Can't you see that he's not in the mood for joking?" the team leader inquired.

"Aw," Jay moaned, "but it is so fun to pester and irritate Kai." His face was a sad one, but the smile tugging at the corners of his lips gave him away.

Kai glared metaphorical daggers at Jay- _if looks could kill... _ Next moment, however, a mischievous glint had made its way into his shifting gold eyes before they turned back to their normal green-gold color. "Why don't you give me a summary of each chapter, Cole? I know you and Zane are finished, and I can just write down key things so I can actually write the essays without complaining throughout," the fire ninja suggested playfully.

"Fine," Cole said reluctantly. Right after, a metaphorical light bulb went off as a knowing smirk grew on his face. " Just as long as I have the notes you jot down so I can write my essays without going back to the book- and as long as Jay helps me with my math."

"Sure," Jay smiled, "as long as Zane helps me with my science."

"I'll agree to that if Kai helps me with history, the assignment about analyzing the ancient metaphorical poetry of the first Samurai warriors."

"Agreed," they all said in unison.

Two Hours Later

"There, finished with all my homework!" Kai exclaimed joyously.

"Me too!" Jay agreed, beaming.

"As am I," Zane chuckled.

"Yep, I am too," Cole noted, grinning at his brothers.

Suddenly, the door burst open and Nya came into the one room and half bath apartment. "That's good, because the Serpentine have been spotted by the northern part of the city," Nya managed to gasp out.

"Finally, something to do," Kai grinned, tossing down his backpack.

"Let's go knock some skulls," Cole agreed gleefully.

With that they ran out of the tiny house.

~o0o~

By the time the ninja arrived at the northern part of the city, the sun was creeping its way to the horizon, basking the city with its heat as it passed its duties to the moon.

There, they found Skales leading an army of slithering-slash-marching Serpentine ahead of them. "What's the plan?" Zane inquired. "We should probably stop them before they hurt anyone- they look like they are up to no good."

"First we need to see what they're up to so we can see how best to counter them," Cole replied. "Do we have any useful intel on their movements? I-" Cole cut himself short as he caught sight of something in the middle of the serpentine band. They had a prisoner and were moving out of the city, fast. Upon closer inspection, the black ninja realized that the Serpentines' prisoner was a teenage girl- one seemingly the ninjas' own age.

"Do you see that?" he asked the group.

His team nodded their affirmation.

"Why have they captured a girl?" Zane asked, completely baffled. "What possible use could they have for her?"

"They are probably using her to lure us into a trap," Kai responded hastily.

Jay and Cole agreed.

"Well, even though it's a trap, we can't just leave that poor girl to suffer at the hands of the Serpentine," Jay said determinedly.

"No we can't," Cole replied. "They are moving out fast, now that they have a hostage, and I say we follow them to see where this trap of theirs is going to go down so we can figure out how best to counter it."

With that being said, they slipped silently from rooftop to rooftop after the serpentine, only to see them get into a vehicle- a snake bus- and drive away at top speed. Without thinking their hastily-made plan completely through, the ninja were all of one mind as they leapt from their spot on the roof of a low building to the roof of the Serpentine's escape vehicle. As the bus picked up speed, the vigilantes clutched the roof of the moving vehicle tightly, waiting to find out where their enemy was headed- and hanging on for dear life. Thankfully, the team's descent onto the roof of the vehicle was missed by escaping snakes, who traveled onwards towards their trap, blissfully unaware of the ninjas' presence.

The vehicle stopped in a forest with the fading sunlight dancing in and out of the shadows, causing the forest to gain an eerie, dangerous feeling. The Serpentine began to exit the escape vehicle with their prisoner as the ninja swiftly leaped into the branches of a nearby pine tree, from which they could watch and develop a plan without being detected.

"Put the prisoner in the center of that clearing and set the traps on the ground around her," Skales ordered. "I want the rest of you to conceal yourselves in ambush positions. The ninja will have by now learned of our captive and will probably be trailing us. Hurry and do it before they find us. If our timing is right, we will be able to take out those pesky ninja, once and for all!" This exclamation was met with raucous cheering and agreements from the Serpentine on the ground, while the ninja in the trees just rolled their eyes.

"Zane," Cole whispered. He took a breath to say more, but Zane, being Zane, interrupted.

"Keep an eye on the serpentine and make a detailed note of their position and the position of all their booby traps," Zane finished for him in a whisper.

Cole nodded and Zane hurried off. "Jay, I want you to position yourself on the opposite side of the clearing. See if you can listen in on their conversations and get us some intel," he told his brother.

Jay grinned and disappeared as he jumped soundlessly to a tree next to the remaining ninja.

"I see the place where they have all their supplies for making the traps," Kai said softly. "The guard can't fully see all sides of it from the place he has positioned himself."

"I see where you are going with that, go steal some useful items then Kai," Cole said chewing on his bottom lip. A plan was beginning to form in his mind. "See if you can get belaying pins and enough rope to stretch the length of the clearing, plus forty feet extra- just in case."

Kai nodded and disappeared through the trees. Cole kept watch while the men were deployed, his mind feverishly scheming.

When they all returned around sunset, Zane handed Cole a chart with all the enemy positions and booby traps marked on them as Jay reported what he had heard, which was hardly anything new. According to Jay, it was mostly boastful brags about the best way to kill them. Kai returned with a handful of the supplies a few moments after his brothers. Cole glanced at the chart one last time, then spoke in a low voice. "Here is the plan: Jay and I will rescue the prisoner while Zane and Kai provide a distraction. Jay, I want you to cut off about forty feet from Kai's rope. Once you're done with that, I want you to tie a belaying pin to either end of the remaining rope. As soon as night falls, I'll tie one end to this tree, and I want you to skirt the trees with the other end and stop when you are directly across from my position."

Jay nodded in understanding, "You want to stretch the rope directly across the clearing, right over where the prisoner is situated."

Cole nodded. "Exactly. You and I will shimmy across and meet in the middle, where we will tie the other half of the rope. If my calculations are right, the remaining rope should reach the thirty feet to the ground, where we can slide down. If she cooperates, we can tie the rope around her and shimmy back up without going anywhere near the booby traps. The snakes won't notice us because I doubt they would expect us to attack from above, judging by the way they set their snares," he explained to his blue-clothed brother.

"I can rig a winch and pulley system so that you and I and the prisoner can get back up to the cross rope faster than if we were climbing, and with a lot less effort," Jay said.

Cole nodded his approval and Jay went to work.

"Zane and Kai, I want you to annoy the enemy, just to insure that their attention will not be on us while we rescue the prisoner. Zane, you know the hot spots, and you," he said turning to the red clad ninja. "You study the map so you're prepared, Kai. You need to be able to run around without getting caught in a trap."

"I can do better than that," Kai mused as he looked at Zane's chart. "I can even penetrate their ambush line without getting caught!" He pointed to the map, explaining, " Right here, there is a weak point in their positioning."

Zane smiled, "We can get through their line, then weave through their booby traps, which should terrify them. Then, we can pretend to be scared off by their right flank and head off into the woods. That _should_ distract them from you two."

Cole smiled, "We make our move at midnight, when they are just starting to get tired and restless."

~o0o~

Karina shivered from her position in the center of the Serpentines' ambush. She had no idea why the Serpentine had taken interest in her and captured her. She had nothing of value to offer them.

She assumed she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had been walking home late after her after school programs and had blundered into the snakes. Karina had tried her best to free herself, but she knew that it would be next to impossible to escape when she was surrounded by a veritable army. Karina felt her lip quiver when she thought of her family and friends as the worry that she might never see them again hit her. She tried to block the hot flood of tears, refusing to cry and show weakness in front of her kidnappers. The moonlight was probably not bright enough for her enemies to see her tears if she cried, but she refused to give in. Feverishly, Karina wished for someone, anyone, to help her.

As if in answer to her silent prayer, a small movement caught Karina's eye. At first, she expected to see one of the snakes, but a closer look at the spot of movement showed not snakes, but ninja- two ninja, in fact. One was wearing red and the other was dressed in white. Both were looking directly at her, trying to catch her attention. She assumed they were there to help, but she figured they didn't know about all the traps. Karina had to warn them- for their safety _and_ her own.

"You stupid snakes!" she yelled dramatically. "You're never going to get what you want; nobody will ever fall for _your traps_!" Karina emphasized the last two words, hoping against hope that her rescuers had caught the hint. Thankfully, the two ninja nodded at her, signaling their understanding.

"Shut up!" one of the snakes hissed at her. "Shut up, or you'll be sorry."

Karina had nothing more to tell the ninja, so she willingly obliged, watching them intently out of the corner of her eye, trying not to alert the snakes to her rescuers' presence.

Surprised, Karina's mouth fell open in a silent cry of alarm and warning when the two ninja made a rush, apparently towards her, heedless of the traps and ambush she had tried to warn them about. By an apparent miracle, they made it through the Serpentine's ambush line and headed straight for Karina. By an even further miracle, they seemed to avoid every single trap the Serpentine had set up, leaping past and over them with such graceful agility, it bordered on acrobatics. When the Serpentine saw what they were doing, they gave a cry of amazed surprise and charged towards the ninja. Karina was surprised when the two warriors, who had been demonstrating such graceful skill, suddenly gave ground before their enemy. After a short show of force, they appeared to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the enemy and retreated, weaving skillfully back through the snares.

Karina was taken slightly aback. She could not understand why warriors, who gave the appearance of being so skillful, would retreat so _easily_. The answer to her unasked question came when she caught a slight movement above her head. It appeared as if two figures were flying thorough the air thirty feet above her head. Karina looked closer and realized they were climbing across a rope that stretched directly overhead. It was not long after this realization that another rope fell before her eyes. A black ninja slid down it and landed softly beside her, not even hesitating as he began to untie the captured teenager.

"When I give the word, grab onto me- and whatever you do, _don't let go_," the ninja warned. Karina could tell it was a he by the depth of his voice. Silently, she nodded, not even questioning whether she trusted him or not. His partner was acting as guard, up high on the ropes, ready to come to his friend's aid. The blue ninja was also fastening something to the rope. Not a minute later, the black ninja's partner nodded, and the ninja on the ground whispered, "I'd suggest you hang on now." Karina realized that this was her cue and grabbed onto him as he grabbed onto the rope.

By now, some of the snakes realized the red and white ninja's attack was a diversion and caught sight of her and the black ninja. Karina was about to shout a warning when they shot upward, propelled by some unseen winch. Karina assumed that that was what the blue ninja had been doing, unknowingly right. As soon as they reached the rope that stretched across the clearing, the black ninja warned for her to "hang on tight". Karina obliged and found herself hanging from his back in an upside down laying position. The only thing keeping her from falling was her vice-like grip as the ninja worked their way across the rope by latching onto it with their hands and knees. She chanced a glance downwards, which was a mistake. The ground far below seemed swirl before her eyes and she clutched the ninja's body tighter. He grunted softly from the pressure of her arms and legs, his breathing coming in shallow gasps. _Probably,_ she realized, _from my overly-tight grip on his chest_.

He swung into the trees on the far end of the clearing and ordered the blue ninja to make a lot of noise and head off in a random tangent to distract attention away from him. He briefly described a rally point and the blue ninja was off. Karina kept her grip on the ninja's back as he climbed nimbly down the tree in the opposite direction of his partner. By now, nearly all the snakes in the camp were confused, chasing after the ever-elusive blue, white, and red ninjas. The black one took her hand and started off silently across the forest floor, constantly veering away from any sound of battle. One snake just happened to blunder into them, but before she could even open her mouth to cry out, the black ninja felled the snake with several fast, well-aimed blows. Without so much as a word. he pulled Karina after him, and she was more than happy to follow.

~o0o~

Cole sighed to himself miserably as he headed towards the rally point he had set. He had successfully rescued the girl, and had thoroughly planned the escape out of the camp, but he had neglected to plan how they would get back to Ninjago City. This forest was _miles_ from where they needed to be. He mentally berated himself for his careless oversight.

Kai, Jay and Zane were already there and waiting for them in the clearing they had set aside for their rally point. By now it was about two in the morning, meaning Cole was _tired_.

"Someone is a bit slow tonight," Kai teased, careful not to use Cole's name in front of the girl. Catching on, Cole realized that he had seen this girl just this morning at their school, and he did _not_ want their cover blown.

"Slow and smart is better than fast and stupid sometimes," he teased back. He could tell by the slight movement behind Kai's cowl and the twinkle in his eyes that he was smiling.

Zane stepped forward and Cole could tell by the look in his icy blue eyes that he was about to point out Cole's oversight at their means of getting back home. Cole sighed and waited for the inevitable. Surprisingly, Zane was interrupted by the sound of a motor. A car pulled up to reveal Nya in her samurai armor at the wheel.

"Thought you could use a ride back," Nya chuckled, opening the doors. "The falcon found you," she explained, answering their unasked question. Cole looked up to see Zane's bird circling above them.

Cole tried hard and failed to stifle a yawn as the car Nya had 'borrowed' rumbled up to their lodging.

The girl Karina had given them directions to take her home, and after giving them all her sincere thanks, she had left. By the time they reached home, it was about three in the morning. Cole could think of nothing but his bed, and he could tell by the way his yawn contagiously spread though the car, that the feeling was mutual. The last thing he thought as he fell into bed was, _I wonder what Karina is going to say about our little adventure tomorrow?_

**E.N. (Editor's Note): Hey, guys, its JayceePhantom here! I'm so excited about Ninjago coming back next year! Now, if I can only survive until October 8****th****, I'll be set!**

**Oh, about October 8****th****, that's when "The Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades" is set to be released! I'm so HAPPY! (goes off and does happy dance)  
LOL anyways, AreiaCananaid and I really appreciate your amazing reviews! Thanks so much! The last little "Cole's thought" part was put it by me- let's see what AreiaCananaid cooks up for next time, eh?**

**Ha-ha. Yeah, I gtg. Bye! **

**-JayceePhantom**


	4. Exhausted ninja, new bully? Bad mixture

Early the next day, Sensei Wu chuckled silently to himself as he saw his apprentices sprawled out on their beds- or for Kai and Cole, a table and the windowsill. He looked at the gong in his hand, he felt sorry for having to wake them at 6:30 a.m. for school, but like it or not, it had to be done.

The ninjas' guardian took his mallet and banged the gong three times. The sound reverberated loudly through the small apartment as he yelled, "Rise and shine!"

Kai was so startled; he fell off the makeshift table-bed with a loud thud. He sat up, rubbing the back of his head, saying, "I will rise, but I refuse to shine." Jay, Cole and Zane, all of whom got up _without_ falling out of their beds, heartily agreed to what Kai said, all the while trying to rub the sleep out of their assorted eyes.

Still half-asleep, Cole looked at the small clock by his windowsill of a bed. "Sensei, its 6:30! We only got 3 ½ hours of sleep!" he protested, now fully awake.

"No wonder I'm so tired," Kai grumbled. By this time, the fire ninja was clambering to his aching, sore feet.

Jay looked at Cole with wide eyes. "Wait, we've only slept for _3 hours!?" _the tired teenager said, panic evident in his voice. "I've never gone to school with only sleeping for three hours!" He started babbling, which he did more _than usual_ when he was sleep deprived.

"Sensei," Zane said over Jay's senseless garble, "do we really have to go to school today? The Serpentine are getting more aggressive."

"This is your second day of school," Sensei Wu said without hesitation. "I will not allow it. You are still being punished, which means you will go to school until I deem fit." The four ninja groaned tiredly at this statement. Their Sensei continued, "I would suggest you begin getting ready-you only have 25 minutes before school starts."

Now fully awake, the ninja jumped out of bed, frantically getting ready for school. As Jay set about making breakfast, his brothers began changing from pajamas into casual clothes, Kai taking over from Jay once he was fully dressed. Smiling halfheartedly at his brother, Jay headed off to the now-open bathroom to change his clothes.

~o-0-o~

"Ugh," Jay moaned, 10 minutes later. As the brothers had woken up late, and they no longer had their Golden Weapons, the undercover ninja were stuck with walking to school. The exhausted blue ninja continued, "My eyelids feel like they are made of lead!"

His brothers agreed wholeheartedly. A few minutes into the tired silence between brothers, Cole said, "I highly doubt I'm going to be able to stay awake if the first class is a boring one." Without missing a beat, the team leader turned to Zane, asking, "I expect you know what it is?"

"I believe it is P.E," the nindroid responded, missing the undertone of sarcasm in his tiredness. Cole shrugged, and the four brothers continued walking, slipping into a sleepy silence.

~o-0-o~

At school, the undercover ninja walked through the crowded school hallway as they made their way to the gym. Silently, they walked through the double doors, which lead to a huge open space- otherwise known as the gymnasium. The coach was standing on a raised platform at the back of the gym, looking intimidating- to anyone but the ninja, who had faced down_ way _scarier things than a coach.

All the students were sitting on the floor so Zane, Jay, Kai and Cole followed suit. Once everybody in the class was sitting, the coach started speaking- or, judging by Kai's wince, more like bellowing.

"Students," he yelled. "We're going to do some stretches, and then we are going to run a lap around the perimeter of the school's property."

A student raised their hand. Noticing this, the coach pointed at him. "Yes?"

The student cleared his throat. "How many miles is it around the school?" he asked.

"Around 2 miles" was the reply. Horrified gasps went around the room.

Jay leaned over and whispered, "That's not so bad-Sensei usually makes us run 5 miles."

"At least it won't be hard for us," Cole said in a low voice.

Kai spoke, his tone quiet. "Should we not be so…" he paused, thinking of a word before his face light up with a smile, "Awesome?"

Jay chuckled, agreeing. "You're right; Kai- if we go too far ahead, the people who were in the front will despise us." He faked coughed, which anyone who was listening closely could hear that he really said, 'Zane'. "However, if we go to the back, we'll be bullied for being too slow, so our best bet is to stick to the middle."

Zane blinked. The nindroid was about to say something when the coach called out to everyone to get out of the gym.

Everybody stretched and waited at the starting line. They were in lines 6 people wide and five people deep, with the undercover ninjas in the middle. A few moments later, the coach blew the air horn, and they were off.

As they were running, the four ninja heard a familiar voice in front of the. To their surprise, it was the girl, Karina that they had rescued last night. "-Stella, I was captured by Serpentine, but my parents thought that I was out partying, so they wouldn't let me skip school," she complained to her friend.

"Ah, that sucks," Stella replied. The undercover ninja recognized her voice as one of the girls in their English class. "I was wondering where you went since you didn't come to my house…"

Other people drowned out the girls' words as the four ninja slowed a bit to get further behind the two girls. As they still had a secret to keep, one could never be too sure if she would recognize their voices.

When they finished the 2 miles around the school, everybody but the ninja were panting or breathing heavily.

The coach allowed a two-minute rest period before he got his students up. "Now we will be doing sit-ups," he ordered. More groans went around the room, but the coach simply pretended that he did not hear them. "I want you to team up in to fours and I'll explain what you will do."

Zane, Kai, Cole and Jay quickly got closer together, making sure they were not going to be teamed up with a random person.

What they were doing was like this: one person got on the floor getting ready for the sit-ups, another person would hold the person who was doing the sit-ups feet. The third person would count how many sit-ups they could to in 3 minutes and the fourth person would hold the stopwatch. Then, they would switch.

Not surprisingly, the ninja did almost a sit-up each second for the required 3 minutes. After another two-minute rest, the coach made everybody do the climbing wall, climbing a thick rope that went all the way to the ceiling and everybody did pull-ups.

When the class was over the coach called the four boys over. "I have never seen someone that could do everything so easily!" the proud coach exclaimed. "You have set a new record for everything," he continued, smiling.

To his surprise, the ninja bowed and walked out of the gym.

~o-0-o~

It was near the end of the day and the ninja could barely keep their eyes open. The only reason they could was that Jay, using what little lighting he had left zapped himself with it, shocking himself into wakefulness. Zane, also using what little elemental power he had left, made ice cubes and discreetly slid them down the back of his neck to bring his attention back in focus, hence the unsystematic shuddering noises that emanated at random intervals from the back of the class. Cole, with what was left of his powers, bent the tiles under his feet to squish his toes every time he felt himself drifting off. Kai used his small remnant of fire control to heat up his hand so it was burning hot and put it on his arm, jolting himself into wakefulness, because of the pain.

Every time the ninja looked at the clock, it seemed not to move, just to spite them. When the bell finally rang, signaling that school was over, Jay had to smooth down the hair that was sticking up, from his lightning, Zane's back was wet, Cole was limping and both of Kai's arms by his wrist were red and raw. They slowly made their way to their lockers, nearly staggering with fatigue.

Zane was so exhausted that he failed to notice the fact that the students around him were looking scared and backing away from his immediate vicinity until it was too late. His senses were dulled by his tiredness and he did not sense the large presence behind him until a shadow fell across him. He started to turn but found his head smashed roughly into his locker before he had a chance.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the four new students responsible for giving my brother a hard time yesterday," a harsh voice said.

As his assailant spoke, Zane felt his head and face rammed harder into the metal with every word. "He said he had been disrespected by the three new students and by the look of it, the fourth that supposedly helped him the other day is on your side- pity for him." Even without his enhanced senses, Zane could tell that this was Brandon's brother, and that he (sadly) did not share in his brother's lack of brains.

"Let go of him," Zane heard Cole say, his voice dark and angry.

"Or what?" the bully asked. "I am holding your friend, and therefore I have all the power in this current situation. I am the one who should be giving the orders, not you, filth. You lied to my brother the other day, and I intend to make you pay for that. So, now in light of my revelation, I want you to come towards me, and don't move a muscle, or I will beat your friends face into the metal of his own locker," he threatened the angry ninja.

Not a smart move.

Zane did not approve of being in the position of hostage especially when he knew that if he tried he could fight free of the bully's oppressive grip. Unfortunately, he would probably have to hurt the bully to get away. Fighting was, as a disadvantage to the ninjas' current situation, not allowed in school, and it went against his morals to break the trust of his superiors. You see, because of his training and meditation, Zane was under the belief that if one lost ones honor and principles, one became the same as the scum that was holding him now.

He heard Cole's confident stride as he obeyed the bully and then Zane nearly lost touch with his principles when he felt the bully let go of him with one hand and strike Cole.

"Hey, you dare try that again and I will bring you down," This time, the speaker had Kai's voice.

"You hurt my brother pretty bad yesterday. In fact, beside the smart mouth and the liar, you are the one I most want to get at." As the bully was threatening the fire-ninja, Zane winced as he was dealt a sharp kick.

"I'll do it again if you don't follow your dark haired friend's example, spike-head."

Zane felt a small smile spread across his face as he realized that the bully had not reasserted his grip.

Kai headed moodily towards the hulking monster of a boy. He had promised the school headmaster that he would not fight in school, but promise or no, he was seriously thinking about attacking this bully. Sulking, the unhappy ninja stood next to Cole. His groggy, tired eyes made him miss seeing the driving kick headed for his middle until it was too late.

Shocked, Kai found himself skidding backwards on the school's tiled floors as his brothers cried out. Kai lost his balance and fell to the ground, just in time to be Jay's safety cushion, as the lightning ninja impacted with a wall, where one of the bully's minions had thrown him.

Kai felt the wind being knocked out of him for the second time in the space of a few seconds. It was at that moment that Zane managed to wriggle out of the bully's grasp and land softly on the ground. The bully had been in the middle of a speech directed at Jay informing him that he had well heard all the disparaging comments that Jay had said about Brandon, and deserved no less than his friends did.

An injured, yet bemused Kai watched the bully's look of surprise as Zane broke free and dashed towards them. Kai and Jay got wearily to their feet to stand side by side with Zane and Cole, their backs to the wall. They stood, firm and tall together, staring straight at the bully and his minions, as if they were daring him to try to hit any of them again. The bully had just decided that he was not feeling comfortable with their looks of defiance when they should have been cowed like all the other people of the school. He had just decided to attack them to teach them their place when a teacher rounded the corner.

"I'm not finished with you yet," he said ominously as he turned to walk away. "I'll be looking for you at lumch tomorrow..."

* * *

**AreiaCananaid: **I hope you like this chapter, I had to procrastinate my several essays on Pride and Prejudice and 7 Men who Ruled the World (not that _that_ was hard, those books are ssssoooooooo boring!) so you better! I poured sweet and tears into this! *cough-not-cough*. Anyway; if you have any suggestions on what should be in the next chapter review and it will come out sooner...Not that I am bribing you in anyway...Mwhahahahahaha (starts coughing, thinking _I was never good at evil laughter.._.)

JayceePhantom**: (rolls eyes) anyways, sorry about the long wait; it does take awhile for both of us to do our stuff! We appreciate all of the reviews! In addition, express thanks to Shattered Glory, that was nice J be aware that AreiaCananaid and I are working hard on our grammar and stuff! Thanks to all the people who read and reviewed on this story!**

**Oh, if you people have anything you may-or-may-not want to see happen, leave it in a review! I do not know about Ariea, but I fully enjoy your reactions when I see what you people like to see happen.**

**Bye now!**

**-**JayceePhantom

**AreiaCananaid: **…What she said. Bye!


	5. A rescue and a revelation!

**AreiaCananaid**: Well here is the next chapter! I think there will be one more chapter, unless one of you can come up with a good idea that I could use for another chapter *hint hint wink wink*

**JayceePhantom**: nooooooooooo! Please give her inspiration! P.S. wherever it says my name, I'm saying something :) Just for clarity :)

**I Always Lie**: Thank you, glad to hear that! Jaycee and I worked hard on this...well... at least I did, Just Kidding, I know she worked hard on it too! :D

**JayceePhantom**: you got that right!

**Shattered Glory**: You know that's right! She is an awesome beta reader!

**Jayc**eePhantom:Awwww, you guys make me blush :) You want to thank someone, thank my amazing English/Grammar teacher, my mother :)

**Mortal Draw**: Don't we all...

**xXxRadonxXx**: Well you don't have to wait any longer! ...Well until the next chapter...

**JayceePhantom**: ... Read and you'll see why I am so brutally tempted to give out a spoiler right now...

**Fatal Strike**: Yep, maybe we can do another story together...

**JayceePhantom**: ... (Blink) Heck to the YEAH!

**xXxNightshadexXx**: I feel sorry for the ninja too.

**JayceePhantom**: they make me want to hug them.

**AreiaCananaid**: *blink* whatever, Jaycee...

**NinjagoZ**: Thanks! I hope Zane doesn't die, yet...

**JayceePhantom**: *rolls eyes* Of course not. Zane is one of my favorites. If you kill him, I will hurt you. :D

Previously: _"I'm not_ _finished with yet," he said ominously as he turned and walked away. "I'll be looking for you at lunch tomorrow..."_

The ninja burst into their one room apartment,tossed their books to the floor in an untidy heap, and staggered into the room without a word. Kai flopped onto his table bed, Cole collapsed, exhausted, over the windowsill that served as his bed, while Zane and Jay sank gratefully into their own beds. Only a few blissful moments later, sensei and Nya entered the room, followed by a rather sweaty and tired Lloyd. They had just returned from a training session on the roof of the apartment building.

"Wow," Nya gasped in surprise. "What happened to you four? You look as if you've been trampled by an army of serpentine."

She was right. All their faces were drawn and tired their eyes slightly bloodshot and shadowed with dark circles. Their appearances could only be described as disheveled. The left side of Zane's face was lightly bruised from his eye to his upper cheek, Cole was sporting a bloody lip, Jay was massaging a lump on his head and a pain in his shoulder, and Kai had a boot print on the red fabric of his shirt and was cradling that area. Nya had never seen Kai's hair look so messy (which was saying something.)

"What happened?" she asked again, definitely more forceful.

"Don't ask," Cole muttered.

"School happened..." Kai moaned, halfway conscious.

"I don't even want to talk about it," Jay started. The fact that he continued screamed the opposite, however. "I have two words for you, school and bullies. Scratch that three words I think I should add sleep-deprived to the mix. Curse that stupid monster of a boy! I swear, the next time I see that… that… thing, I am going to-"

"Ryan, his name was Ryan," Zane corrected tiredly. "I looked it up on the school roster. Brandon's brother's name is Ryan."

"That idiot does not even deserve a name if you ask me. Why bother to even look it up?" Jay asked darkly.

"Know your enemy," Zane said simply before he rolled himself out of his bed to get his homework.

All throughout dinner, Sensei glanced at the haggard faces of his students. It had to be admitted that he was feeling bad for his them. He was proud of them for not resorting to violence and breaking the rules, but he felt bad that they had to suffer for it. He debated whether or not to take them out of school, but he sensed that there was something for them to learn there. Surprisingly, he also sensed that they would be needed there. Perhaps it had something to do with the school's bully problem.

He looked hard at the faces of his students, Zane's was as impassive as ever and it was hard to guess what he was thinking. The others were thankfully a bit easier to read. Jay was muttering about his enemy as if he were planning an incriminating speech about him for a court, in other words: he was venting. Kai's eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, his eyes burning with anger. He was probably planning or running though revenge scenarios. Cole's face was placid and his eyes were slightly narrowed. Every now and then he would chew his lip. Sensei knew that that face meant he was planning strategies, his mind racing over every possible scenario that could happen the following day including every variable, how to best combat them, back up plans probably included.

After dinner, sensei watched as his students dragged themselves into their beds. He decided he would give them five minutes of extra sleep before he woke them in the morning. They only had two more days to go through before the weekend.

The next morning the ninja were sitting in English class, the second class of the day, when the teacher called them to the front desk.

"Something has come up," she said, "I need you four to report to the nurse's office right after class."

Puzzled, the ninja did what they were told and went to the nurse's office.

There they found the principal waiting for them. "We have received a report that the serpentine have been spotted in the city. You have permission to leave school to do your jobs, but I expect you to try to get it done reasonably quickly so as not to miss too much class," she warned. The ninja nodded and left using the back door.

Cole grinned happily as they left the building. "This is a pleasant surprise," he said.

"Finally, something interesting!" Kai exclaimed.

"A break from the monotony of school," Zane agreed.

"And best of all, no having to worry about meeting up with Ryan at lunch time," Jay said, relieved.

The serpentine problem turned out to only be four dim witted snakes that had the nerve (or stupidity, more likely) to attack the museum of natural history. The problem was soon taken care of, and the ninja made it back to class, just after lunch was finished. They had eaten on the way back, treated by a thankful Museum Director, who had taken them to McDonalds. The rest of the day went by without incident until the change of class from third to fourth period. There was a 10 minute break allotted to the students, in order for them to get to their next classes. The ninja were headed for math class when they were stopped in the hall by Ryan, Brandon, and all their lackeys.

Ryan snarled, "Don't think I don't know what you did." The ninja exchanged glances, wondering if he was...alright in th head. "I saw you four go to the nurses office and pretend you were sick to avoid me at lunch time. It was pretty stupid of you to think that that would get you out of having to pay," he continued as he stepped nearer. "Boys, have at them, but make it quick- I need this done before class starts."

With that, the line of bullies head towards them.

"Just because we can't fight back does not mean we just have to take it," Cole whispered. "Let's even the score, formation six, evasive maneuvers," he ordered.

The ninja,smiling with agreement, nodded as the bullies came closer and began their attack. The ninja began to skillfully and acrobatically dodge and weave their attackers' strokes. Not a single bully was able to land a single punch. This went on for about three minutes with the bullies getting madder and madder at the second.

Some of the other students started to cheer on the ninja. Many of the students had had it up to their eyeballs with Ryan and Brandon's bulling. As the commotion grew, the P.E. teacher was drawn to the noise, fearing a fight.

He arrived in time to see a fair amount of the ninjas' skillful weaving before the bullies finally noticed the teacher's presence and stopped their attack.

"What is going on?" the P.E. teacher asked.

Ryan,quick on the uptake, replied instantly without a moment's hesitation. "We are practicing for an after school play we are performing at the community center. We were just working on the choreographing of the fight scene," he lied, smiling falsely. The ninja, behind his back, exchanged looks of bewilderment.

The P.E. teacher had not seen any actual physical contact between the students, so he assumed Ryan was telling the truth. Brandon's delayed "We were what?… Oh, right, a play," did raise some momentary suspicion, but he soon dismissed it. After all, Brandon was not known for being the sharpest tool in the shed. (JayceePhantom: ohhh, Areia...) He nodded then walked up to the ninja. "You four should join my gymnastics team. From what I see, you would fit in nicely. Our team is a bit short on people this year, and you are all quite skilled. We could certainly use you at tournament. All the rest of you, break it up and head to class," he said, turning to everyone else. Knowing the students would need some encouragement, he continued, "The bell will probably ring soon."

The students moved to obey, the crowd of students blocking the 'I- promise-to-get-revenge' look Ryan shot at the ninja, and the look directed at the other students that warned them into silence threatening punishment if they snitched on him and punishment to those who had defied him from the gym teacher. Happily oblivious, the P.E. coach walked away, believing the matter was closed.

Suuuuurrreee...

~o0o~

Karina had been one of the people who had been cheering on the four new students. She was not by any means a popular person and had met with Ryan's bullying on more than one occasion too many. As she walked slowly to class, something tugged at her memory. She could have sworn that she had seen someone else move with the same agility and grace the four new students had just demonstrated, but her mind was fully occupied by her upcoming trigonometry test, so she let the momentary memory flash aside as she once more went over her math notes in her head.

Karina smiled with pleasure as she headed out of the school building at the end of the day. She was relatively sure that she would get a passing grade on her math test, which in turn meant that she would get an A in the class and that her grade-point average would for sure be about a 4.0. She knew that would make her parents proud.

She had been a little worried about the trigonometry test at first, because she had missed a lot of study time because of being captured by serpentine. Her parents had not believed her late arrival at home was because she had been kidnapped held hostage and then rescued by ninja. They thought she had just been out late and, consequently, she had barely missed being grounded and had been forced to go to school the next morning. When she came home, she was so tired that she had fallen asleep and missed her study hour.

Smiling broadly, she exited the school building and fairly leaped down the steps to the sidewalk. Her pleasant mood made her barely feel the weight of her backpack and she started to skip down the paved path to her home. Her smile died on her lips as she rounded the corner. In front of her blocking her path home was Ryan, Brandon and about six of their minions. Karina felt her eyes widen with horror and her heartbeat quicken within her.

"You don't honestly think I would forget that you were cheering on my enemies today," Ryan said with a smile. "It was rather stupid of you to do that, don't you think? Especially since you already knew I had it in for you."

A small whimpering sound escaped her lips as she was backed into the wall that lined the sidewalk at her back.

"I'm n…n… not the only o… o… one, who was cheering on your enemies, why single me out?" she stammered, trying to talk her way out of her predicament. Karina knew that there was nowhere for her to go; no chance for her to run.

"No, but I have already taken care of a few of the others, you just happen to be next on the list. And, unfortunately for you, you were scheduled for the after school hours. I don't like it when people make a fool out of me, and feel someone needs to pay up and right now that someone is you."

"You, is quite a subjective term, don't you think," a new voice sounded. "Its context can change when the situation changes."

The bullies' heads turned to see a youth in a blue hoody and brown pants and blue converse. Hs hair was auburn, styled in a causal manner and his eyes were a riveting dark blue.

Karina recognized him instantly as one of the four who had stood up to the bullies earlier in the day.

"What exactly do you aim to accomplish on your own boy? You are one and we are many."

"Numbers are not always the deciding force in a battle, even still," he said with cocky smile, "and whoever said I was alone?"

As he spoke, three others rounded the corner. Karina realized with a start that they were his partners from earlier in the day.

"It has come to my attention that this mindless poltroon is taking out his primitive feelings out on helpless people, and all this was inadvertently caused by our actions. My sincerest apologies about that, my lady," he said tuning to her with a slight nod of his head before turning his attention back towards the enemy. "See even now it seems that the 'you' that is to be 'paying dearly' has switched from this lovely lady to you uncouth blokes."

"Exactly what language are you speaking?" his friend with the spiky brown hair and red shirt asked in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice. "What is with all the flowery wording?"

"Give me a break, I just came from a legislative class and I was analyzing poetry before that, I can't help myself. My mind is on fancy language overload."

Karina could tell that Ryan was starting to get perturbed by these four interlopers and their apparent lack of concern. Most people at the school were terrified of him but apparently not these four. Angrily he ordered his friends to attack.

"A thought has just occurred to me," the one in black spoke, unperturbed by the turn of events, "we are no longer on the school premises, so our vows of non violence don't apply anymore."

Karina nearly jumped when she heard his voice, she was almost positive that she had heard it before. She looked into his face and his chestnut colored eyes were somehow very familiar. Her mind looked back trying to remember where she had seen I'm before. For a moment she couldn't place it, after all these four students were new to the school. Then it hit her, red, blue, black, and white. 'It couldn't be could it,' she thought to herself. 'Could it be that the ninja responsible for rescuing the city so many times and saving her life were actually no more than normal teenagers making their way in life just the same as everyone else?'

The ones in black, red, and blue looked pleased with the black clad ones suggestion, but the one in white looked slightly taken aback.

"Surely we are not going to use our full strength against them, that is hardly fair," the white clad one protested, his pale blue eyes carrying a hint of concern.

"We're not going to take them out completely," the black clad one said with a smile, "just take them down a few pegs, and to even it out still further, we won't fight them unless they attack us."

Ryan seemed to have missed this last piece of dialogue for he did indeed attack. When the four new students started fighting them, there was no doubt in Karina's mind as to their identity.

The newly discovered ninja rushed forward to meet their attack. Karina could not help but gape at how well they were fighting; as she looked she could see the subtle differences in their fighting style, the white one seemed to flow, like water, to one move to the next, the black one seemed to move more sturdy and had lots of power in his attack, Karina could not help but think of earth when she watched him fight. The blue one fought in quick, electrical strokes. He went into the attack fast and left fast, leaving devastation in his wake, like lightning. The red one was everywhere, flipping and moving all the time, like the uncontrollable element of fire.

Soon there was only one left. The ninja were obviously martial arts masters. The one that was left was the one that Ryan had posted to guard her, so that when he was finished teaching a lesson to the new kids, he could deal with her. Karina, feeling empowered by the ninja's fighting skills, un-slung her backpack. Before her guard could make a move to defend himself, she clubbed him over the head with her extremely heavy textbook-containing backpack,and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

All the others, who weren't too busy nursing bruises, or out cold, ran away.

The four ninja came over to see if she was alright. As they did, she stepped forward.

"Thank you for saving my life," she said quietly before adding, "twice."

The ninja looked surprised for a moment before nodding their acknowledgement.

"I think our cover has just been blown," Kai said wryly.

"Could you, uh, promise not to tell anyone about that?" Jay asked pleadingly, "If word got out, there is no telling what could happen."

"After you saved me twice, it would be rude to refuse," Karina said smiling. "Your secret will be safe with me, I promise."

Zane looked worriedly at his friends. "If we do not leave soon, we will be late. That would make sensei most displeased. He will be even more displeased than he is already bound to be when he discovers our recent act of violence."

"Too much legislative and poetry classes for him too then?" Karina asked with a smile as she raised a hand in farewell.

"Actually, no," Cole replied mirroring her farewell gesture with a smile. "He always talks like that."

~o0o~

"So, I think the bullies will think twice before they attack anyone again," Kai said animatedly to Lloyd and Nya when they returned home.

"Cool!" Lloyd exclaimed. "I wish I was there to see it!"

"You could have at least tried to talk things through first," Nya said in a slightly disapproving tone of voice.

"We tried, or at least I did," Jay protested.

"All their victims never got a chance to talk it out," Cole pointed out.

"Besides, we're men, our talking consists of swinging fists," Kai said with a smirk.

Nya rolled her eyes,facepalmed, and groaned.

"I hope that you did not unleash all your training on them," the voice of Sensei said sternly, startling all the ninja.

"We didn't," Zane replied promptly. "Well, at least I know for sure I didn't."

Sensei Wu glared pointedly at Kai.

"Why are you looking at me? I most certainly didn't," Kai protested. "Although I admit, I did think about it," he muttered so softly that only his Sensei heard.

**AreiaCananaid**: Well how'd ya'll like it? Was it okay? So, as I said before, there will be one more chapter unless one of you can come up with a good chapter idea!

**JayceePhantom**: please please please give her an idea! I would, but I don't necessarily have the inspiration :) I'm using all that on Sovereign Secrets! (Hey, don't kill me for shameless advertising!)

**AeriaCananaid**: whatever. Just please review!

**JayceePhantom**: yeah, review soon please! I certainly get a kick out of reading the really funny ones :)

**Until next time! -ArieaCananaid and JayceePhantom :)**


	6. Cranky Kai and Terrible Teachers

**AreiaCananaid**: HAPPY EASTER! I pushed myself to writing this faster just for you as an Easter present :D. Since most of you said you wanted more chapters, there will be two more chapters after this! Thanks for all the reviews! Me and Jaycee love them!

**JayceePhantom**: yes! We have succeeded in cursing her with inspiration! Yay!

**kokokringles**: I was having a "fancy talk overload" because we were doing that in school! In fact most of my inspiration is stuff that has happened to me...

**Mortal Draw**: Thanks (but I can tell you that it wouldn't have been as awesome if Jaycee hadn't beta-ed it)! Yep, two more chapters.

**Fatal Strike**: As I said before, it wouldn't have been as awesome without Jaycee! I'll do that ;)

**Shattered Glory**: Thank you! That part was fun to write too.

**Master Derpy** (previously known as: **I always lie**): Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Will you have to go to the metal hospital? If so, I am sorry.

**NinjagoZ**: That would be funny XD! I'll see if I can incorporate it in my plan...

**Curious**: No don't! I just suck at romance, I can't write it, I tried and failed, let me tell you, it wasn't even an epic fail, it was like sensei put it: "Oh so fail". I probably suck because I hate romance...

**Alexis**: Well your curiosity will be quelled, until you have to wait 'til the next chapter!

**Chapter 6**

Kai gritted his teeth even more as the sound of Jay's snoring reached his ears again. He glanced at the clock. 4:51 A.M. Why couldn't it be day already so he didn't have to listen to the monotonous sound of snoring? The frown that was on his face deepened. He bared he teeth as a snore louder than the others pierced the night with the unholy sound. Somehow, Kai guessed, Jay had managed to catch a small cold yesterday during school, because he usually didn't snore.

Kai, with an angry sigh, turned over to his right side and looked to see if anybody else was bothered by it. To his disappointment, the fire ninja found he was the only one. He curled his knees higher to his chest so he was in a ball, and buried his head in his legs, trying to drown out the noise. However, that didn't work. Kai sighed disappointedly, thinking, why did I think that would work when it didn't the last 20 times?

The snores grew louder and Kai covered his ears with his hands, but the horrendous noise still managed to seep through. Kai had a problem: he couldn't fall asleep if there was noise. He was strange like that, he supposed. In order for him to sleep, he needed complete darkness and silence. He thought back to when he was a child - when both his parents were still alive.

_His mom had just gotten him a nightlight. She thought that since Nya had wanted one, he had wanted one too. Of course he didn't want one. He didn't mind the dark as it gave him time to think and let his imagination run wild, then fall asleep once he thought up an epic tale. The light emanating from the new nightlight in his room was annoying him; he couldn't daydream with the dazzling light illuminating the whole room with its bright white rays. His eyes kept snapping open. He growled he got up to unplug it when a thought hit him: 'Mom got this for me, she might be mad if I didn't use it.'_

_So, instead of unplugging it, he put a huge wad of Kleenexes on top of it to dim the light. He did that every night until his mom found out and said, "Just unplug it."_

_He soon found out that he couldn't fall asleep when there was noise, light, if he was in a car, or watching a movie-he had to stay up to watch the end, no matter how terrible the movie was or if he had already seen that movie a thousand times. He just couldn't fall asleep._

Kai was broken out of his reverie when Jay snored noisier than ever. He practically jumped off his uncomfortable table bed in surprise. He glared at Jay, even though he knew he couldn't see it. The awake ninja looked at the clock and groaned: it was 5:30 A.M. at the dot. How could Jay do this to him?

Kai thought to himself, 'Where can I go that is _away from Jay's snoring_?'

Then it hit him. He jumped off his bed, careful not to make a sound, and walked on the balls of his feet to the door. Sensei had told him in his first week of training that walking on tiptoes, although believed to be more silent by most everybody, was in reality, louder than walking normally. He quietly unlocked and opened the door, walked out, then closed and relocked it behind him.

He glanced upwards to the roof where the Ultra-Dragon was. Usually, there would be a ladder that enabled a person access to the roof, but it was taken down every night by the Land-Lord for safety reasons. He looked at the stucco of the wall, looking for good hand and feet grips. Once he found them, he swarmed up the wall, faster than a spider on steroids.

Once his fingers gripped the edge of the flat roof, he used his arm strength to pull himself up and into a flip. Kai landed gracefully, his knees bent to take the strain of the landing, and to be silent.

The dragons' heads shot up as they sensed someone coming to the roof. Once they recognized it as a friend, three of the heads laid back down. Only the one that had red stripes stayed alert, for the person who came onto the roof was his best friend.

"Hey Flame," said Kai quietly, petting his head and scratching under the chin like the dragon loved.

Flame made an odd purring noise, signaling that he was enjoying the attention. When Kai stopped stroking him, Flame looked at the moon, gauged the time, then looked back to Kai in a question.

Kai, seeing the questioning look, answered, "Jay is snoring and I can't go to bed. Can I bunk down with you tonight?"

The dragon nodded in understanding, conveying a telepathic message to Rocky, Shard, and Whisp, the dragon moved onto its side and curled itself into a half ball, its tail closing the circle. Flame jerked its head in the center. Kai got the message and climbed into the circle, snuggling up against the warm underside of the dragon and using one of its front legs as a pillow. Finally comfortable in complete silence and darkness, Kai was able to go to sleep.

~o0o~

Sensei glanced around the room; his gaze passed over the table but quickly returned as he noticed Kai was gone. He looked around the room to see if he could find him. He could sense Kai was still in the building, but he couldn't see him. Sensei raised his gong and his mallet and banged the gong as hard as he could 5 times. The sound reverberated around the little room, and the three present ninja jumped out of their beds, ready for action.

Once they realized there was no danger Jay was the firsts to speak up in a whinny tone, "Aw, Sensei, why did you have to wake us up like that? I-"

He was cut off by Cole, "Where's Kai?"

Cole, what with being the team leader and always keeping tabs on his teammates, had noticed his brother's absence first.

The other two ninja looked at the table. Jay sniffed loudly, resulting in Cole, Zane and Sensei glaring at him.

"Whaaat?" he asked, drawing out the 'a' and sticking his bottom lip out, pouting.

"I am sensing that you have a cold," Zane pointed out.

"It's only a small one, and I doubt it's contagious," Jay protested.

They started arguing, temporarily forgetting Kai was missing, until their sensei cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.

They all stared at the ground and said simultaneously, "Sorry, sensei."

"Now that you gotten that out of your system, why don-" Jay sniffed loudly again, breaking off his Sensei's sentence. There was a mumbled 'sorry' from the sheepish lightning ninja, so Sensei continued. "Why don't one of you go look for him, you have only 20 minutes before school starts."

"I'll cook!" Cole said. The excited earth ninja rushed off to the small kitchen before anyone could say otherwise.

"I'm going to get ready," Jay said as he sniffed again.

"That leaves me to find Kai," Zane said. He walked close to the wall as he passed Jay, meaning he didn't know if nindroids could get sick and he didn't want to find out.

As he passed sensei, sensei said, "He shouldn't be that hard to find. I sense he is still in this building."

Zane nodded, acknowledging the fact and walked out the door. He had decided to check out the roof first, for something was telling him to go there. The Land-Lord had replaced the ladder 10 minutes earlier, so Zane could easily get up.

He climbed the ladder fast and made it to the roof. The dragons were curled around something which Zane noted. As Zane moved closer, Shard, his dragon, raised his head, but Zane made a gesture with his hand not to move, so Shard laid back down.

Zane walked quietly to the dragon. What he saw made him almost laugh aloud: Kai, curled up in a ball, using the dragon's forearm as a pillow, and cuddling with the dragon's foot. Zane took a mental picture before gently shaking his shoulder. That was his first mistake. Kai punched the person shaking him hard in the arm.

Zane winced in pain as he remembered that that was the punishment for waking Kai when he didn't want to be awakened. Kai didn't even know that he punched people when they woke him.

"Kai wake up! We need to get ready for school!"

"I don't want to go to school," Kai complained through the haze of sleep.

"If you don't get up now, I will poison your ears with Mariachi music," Zane persuaded, knowing it was his last card to play.

That got Kai up. He shot up and tackled Zane to the ground in a matter of milliseconds.

"Don't you dare," he said menacingly.

"I do dare." Zane knew he shouldn't play it, but his arm was still hurting from the hard punch. If he had learned anything from his brothers, it was to take revenge when you could. He pulled away from Kai's hold on his arm, opened a panel on it, went to his recordings, and pressed play.

'_En la mañana, yo tengo un dolor en mi cabeza,_

_En la mañana, you tengo un dolor en me estómago_

_Yo tengo mucho hambre._

_Yo tengo mucho hambre…'*_

The song didn't get any farther than that as Kai screamed as if in pain and flung his hands over his ears.

"Turn that off right now or I swear I'll-"

Zane used that as an opportunity to escape; he picked himself off the ground and made a run for it, followed by a furious Kai.

"I found him and woke him up," Zane said, feeling rather pleased with himself, as he rushed into the one room half-bath apartment.

"No kidding," Cole said as he took in Kai's thunderous expression as he stormed into the apartment after Zane.

Jay, who was at the table waiting for Cole to finish making breakfast, took one look at Kai's expression and the murderous glint in his eye, and said, "You played Mariachi music, didn't you."

Kai's murderous glare turn towards Jay, causing him to scoot farther back in the chair and wish he could turn invisible.

"I wouldn't have had to listen to that sacrilege if it wasn't for you!" he screeched.

Jay visibly flinched and said indignantly, "Me? What did I do?"

Kai growled under his breath. As his anger levels increased, the room got gradually hotter, not helping to reign in his temper. "Don't act all innocent! You were snoring so loud last night I couldn't sleep! You kept me awake 'til six in the morning! SIX!" He yelled the last part, losing any pretense of control on his flaring temper.

Jay took a Kleenex and blew into it, throwing it into the garbage before saying sarcastically, "Well, I'm sorry."

Kai growled again. The plant in the corner spontaneously combusted, filling the room with smoke. As all the others raced to get the flames out, Kai stormed over to his chair at the table and sat down, muttering under his breath. **(I wish I could make things spontaneously combust- actually, no I don't. Still, pretty cool, huh?)**

Coughing, Cole opened the door to let out all the smoke. "Now that that's over-"

"It's not over," Kai muttered menacingly.

"It is. As I was saying: breakfast is served, and if you don't stop fuming and steaming, the smoke alarms are going to go off, and then we'll all get wet," Cole explained as he brought a plate full of pancakes to the table.

Even though the ninjas teased Cole about his horrible cooking, he actually was a fairly good cook-when he stuck to the recipes, of course.

After everyone had started eating Kai gradually eased into a slightly better mood. He was still cranky, but not quite as bad as before. "I'm sorry for tackling you this morning," he said turning towards Zane. "I hope you feel better soon too Jay," he said softly. "In all honesty I should be blaming the person at school who got you sick." As an afterthought, he added, "Are you sure you're well enough to go to school? I mean you look horrible."

Jay sighed, then sniffed. "Sensei said that since I don't have a fever, I should go, but if it gets worse I can always go to the nurses office," he explained, grabbing a packet of Kleenex.

"Here Jay," Nya said, passing him a steaming mug. "This tea was an old recipe of my mom's; it will help you feel better.

"Thanks," Jay said stuffily.

"Today we have math and literature as usual,but we also have music. Also,the P.E. coach has switched our class from the normal P.E. class to gymnastics," Zane informed his brothers. The four were trudging stoically to class.

Kai brought the small wooden flute up to his mouth, then pulled it away, staring dismally at it. They were all loaned instruments that they were the most familiar with. Kai was startled to learn that Zane had a slight skill as a violinist, Cole had learned percussion instruments (JayceePhantom: go percussion!) at the Marty Openhimer School of Performing Arts, and Jay's family owed a tsungi horn, which Jay's father had taught him somewhat how to play. Kai, when he was a child, had owned a wooden flute. As he looked at it now, he had serious doubts that he would remember how to play it. He was already in a foul mood because of English class.

As everyone tuned their instruments, Kai's thoughts went back to the first class of the morning. The teacher had decided to take time to build complex spelling skills. Each student had been given a word. When it was their turn, they were to spell that word on the blackboard. Zane had gone first, and had correctly and easily spelled _Acquiesce_. Cole was next and managed to successfully blunder his way through the spelling of the word _Bourgeoisie_. Then, it had been Kai's turn. He had taken the chalk and stood by the board.

"How do you spell _Chamois,_ Kai?" Mrs. Becky asked.

"What's the definition, please?"Kai had asked.

"It is a rough leather cloth used for polishing."

Kai had stared miserably at the board. He had no idea how to spell chamois, so he took a gamble and decided to spell it how it sounded, which was a mistake. He wrote '_shamie_' on the board.

"That is not how you spell _chamois_, Kai. It is spelled c-h-a-m-o-i-s," she had said slowly, deliberately, and in a slightly condescending tone of voice.

Kai had been having, as Cole usually put it, a rough day, and the teachers tone of voice and gall to make him look like a fool in front of the class by giving him one of those despicable trick words, was the last straw. He could not contain the snarky reply that sprang to his lips.

"No, I did not spell it wrong," he said sarcastically. "You asked me how _I_ spell _chamois_, and that," he said, gesturing at the board, "is how _I_ spell it." Kai regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth- or when he saw the enraged, and slightly hurt, face of his teacher.

Zane had looked horrified at his disrespect. Cole had looked on with his well practiced straight-face, though his eyes shone with shocked amusement. The room had been completely silent for a moment until the inevitable descended: Jay had let out an undignified snort, shook violently for a few seconds, then burst into helpless laughter. Half of the other students in the room joined him. Once Jay had realized what he had done, he tried to cover his laughter with coughing and sneezing, but it was too late.

Kai found out the hard way that the teacher was in just as foul a mood as he had been in. With a short "Go to the principal's office", she had pointed towards the door.

Kai apologized for his rudeness, and had begun to leave the room when Cole had stepped forward politely. He had made a playacting speech to soften the situation, and Kai had gotten off with a simple warning.

It was not turning out to be such a great day for him. He was rather surprised when the music teacher helped him out with his flute and he began to actually enjoy music class. Kai's mood only lightened further when he arrived at gymnastics class. The teacher had signed them up for the weekend's tournament because of their skill. Even Jay, who was performing far below his normal standard due to his cold, was at a slightly higher level than the coach's normal students, and the coach was definitely pleased with them.

Kai's previous dark mood had faded so much that he even stayed after class during the first part of his lunch break to help a student perfect a flip-handspring-combo. Then, he delivered a handwritten apology note to Mrs. Becky, who had forgiven him and apologized for being short with him.

He sat at the lunch table with his ninja brothers, peacefully munching a sandwich **(om nom nom)** when he felt someone behind him-watching him. Turning, he saw Karina, wringing her hands worriedly.

"I need to speak with you four now," she said urgently.

Wordlessly, all of one mind, they all got up and followed her. As soon as they were relatively alone in the hall, she spoke.

"About five minutes ago, I thought I felt a slight shaking in the ground-almost like an earthquake, but not quite. It reminds me a lot of the way the Constricti burrow. I tried to tell the school authorities, but they told me it's nothing. I didn't know who else to tell but you," she said hurriedly. She kept looking worriedly at the ground, as if convinced a snake was going to jump up and grab her.

Kai had no reason to doubt her words, so when Cole spoke, he knew the feeling was mutual.

"Show us where," Cole said.

-_-_-0_o-_-_-

**AreiaCananaid**: Dun dun DUUUUNNNNNNN! I left you at a cliffhanger! *Starts to laugh evilly, but remembers I suck at it so quickly shut my mouth*

**JayceePhantom**: muahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaah!

**AreiaCananaid**: ...

***Translation for the song**:

'In the morning, I have a pain in my head.

In the morning, I have a pain in my stomach.

I have much hunger.

I have much hunger...'

**AreiaCananaid**: Yes me and my sister wrote this ourselves, but we based it off of a mariachi song (hate them, curse whoever invented that type of music, we (my sister and I) feel like Kai when we hear them) we heard in the radio while flipping through chanels (when coming home from Spanish class), the real song was about hot chicks (hot woman/girls). Do you like it? Did you guess what it said? Will you sing it to annoy everbody? Will you sing it just to prove you can sing in Spanish? Are you sick of my questions? Do you think I can ask anymore? *Gasp* I just did! Boo-ya! Sorry for all the hyperness, it's *looks at the clock* 4 in the MORNING and still I still have not gone to bed! I get hyper at night XP.

**JayceePhantom**: ... Remind me never EVER to give you or your sister coffee or caffeine. Anyways, thanks for all the reviews, guys! Tell us what you think about this chapter!

Oh, and to Alexis: yes, I'm a HoO fangirl... I can't wait for August 14th! That's when the new movie comes out (I want to see if they managed to redeem themselves lol). See you next chapter, guys and gals of the fandom!


	7. Betrayed and Forgiven

**AreiaCananaid- **I am so, so, soooo sorry for the delay! I have a valid reason though, my computer somehow broke and wouldn't turn on again, so I wrote it in my writing spiral then when my dad fixed my computer my spiral went missing! So after 2-3 days of looking I gave up and re-wrote it on the computer; then as soon as I finished typing it I found my spiral! Sdfdgsgejhjfsg *Head smashes on keyboard*. You don't know how annoying that is. I felt like screaming (In fact I did. I think my parents wanted to take me to the mental hospital). So if you can find it, in your heart of your bottom, to forgive me I ask that you do, please? *Puppy eyes*

**JayceePhantom-** …annnnyyywayysss… on to the reviews!

**NinjagoZ- **Here ya go! Epic/Funny chapter 7, made to order!

**Shattered Glory- **Glad you liked it. That was purely AreiaCananaid, no editing needed!

**Mortal Draw-** GO, young grasshopper, and annoy EVERYONE YOU COME IN CONTACT WITH! Mwahhahahahaahhaaaaahh!

**Fatal Strike- **I really, _really _hate cliffhangers. Like, I want to kidnap the authors who leave cliffhangers (curse you, Rick Riordan!) and tie them to a chair until they finish a new chapter. I don't blame you for it lol : D I don't want this story to be over! WHAT WILL I DO WITH MY LIFE?! (Shakes AreiaCananaid)

**AreiaCananaid- **leettt—mmeee—gooooooo!

**SOSRandom- **Yeah, it's kinda complicated, b/c she doesn't like romance, but I do, so… We're stuck at a bit of a crossroads. Thanks! I think it's pretty funny, too, and I laugh at random times when I remember parts of the story… Fairly certain my English, History, Math, and Science teachers now think I'm crazy :D

**x Shadow Frost x – **Thanks! I love getting reviews like this (and AreiaCananaid does too) because they make me feel all happy inside :D

**JayWalkerNinjaofLightning** **– **I'm going to take that as that you can't stand the cliffhanger and that you really want us to post again? Well, if that's your meaning, here ya go!

Karina led the incognito-ninja through the school's hallways, leading them towards the restrooms. She was about to tell them to stand by the wall in between the doors to the two restrooms when she stopped, mid thought and mid stride, her mouth agape. The linoleum floor of the hallway was marred with jagged cracks, and in the floor next to the wall, there loomed a huge, gaping black hole- evidence of the Constricti's burrowing.

"Poopsickles on a silver platter, we're too late," Jay said in a hushed whisper.

"Too late to stop them from getting in, but not too late to kick them out," Kai said determinedly. Then a crooked smile grew on his face."I knew you would say my exclamation sometime."

Jay chose to do the (exceptionally) mature thing: he stuck out his tongue.

"I don't understand," Zane mused, ignoring his two brothers, "this just doesn't make any sense."

"What the heck don't you understand? There are _serpentine_ running amok in the school and everyone is in danger! It's bloody simple! We need to stop them!" Jay practically yelled. "We are so hooped!"

Zane waited patiently for him to finish his rant, his eyebrows raised at Jay in a scathing expression. "What I don't understand," Zane said slowly and deliberately, "is their motives in attacking the school. This move is completely illogical - what could they possibly gain from this attack?"

"That doesn't matter now," Cole said urgently. "All that matters right now is the fact that the snakes are in and everyone is in danger."

He began to ease down the hall stealthily, as if drawn by a sound around a bend in the hallway. "As for their motives, Zane, I'm sure we'll figure that out soon enough. Karina," Cole said, turning to the girl, "I need you to go to the principal, or any teacher you trust, and try to get as many people out of the school as quickly and quietly as you can."

Karina nodded, "I'll do better than that. I'll get them all out, or die trying," she promised.

With her promise made, she hurried off in the opposite direction that the ninja were going.

Cole, after looking around to make sure no one was around, gave a signal to his brothers, and the ninja changed from their school outfits to their ninja garb in a whirl of Spinjitzu. Cole led the ninja towards the noise that he had been following: faint screaming, almost as if the screamer was being gagged, or muffled.

The ninja rounded the corner, just in time to see the vice principal being dragged towards the stairs that led to the upper story and roof of the school by a troop of serpentine. That in itself was horrifying, but the worst- and most confusing- part about the whole situation was that Ryan, his brother, and all their cronies were running up the stairs, side by side with the snakes.

"What is he doing here?" Jay asked in horrified surprise.

"I don't know." Kai responded, then muttered, "I knew I should have put the juice of the Poinsettia in his lunch milk."

Zane, the only one who heard him, gaped at Kai in shock, "That causes severe vomiting and diarrhea!"

Zane could tell Kai was smirking because of the sparkle in his green eyes, as he said, "I know."

Zane was about to berate Kai when Cole gave an order. "Guys, up the stairs! We've got to rescue the vice principal!"

They nodded and dashed towards the stairs to get to the roof. There was Serpentine of all kinds, which meant they had to fight their way up. The ninja knocked snakes everywhere- left, right, off the railing and down the stairs; only using their fists and feet to fight them, as they didn't have their main weapons and the only weapons they did have would not work for the confined space of the staircase.

As they reached the roof, the four brothers saw 30 Serpentine with Skales leading them, standing in phalanx formation*. Beside them was Ryan, Brandon and their cronies being patted on the back by some of the snakes while Skales said, "Good work, surface dweller; I thought you were lying."

Ryan glanced nervously at the four ninja; he looked surprised and horrified to see them as he shifted his feet awkwardly.

The ninjas' eyebrows rose. Skales had just affirmed that he was a traitor; they didn't get to think on the matter anymore as Skales diverted his attention from the bullies to the ninja him front of him. "Give yourselves up and come with us to Lord Garmadon, or else this lady dies," he said as he lifted a knife to her throat.

The ninja looked at each other in a horrified silence. They knew what the right thing to do was, but they were reluctant to do it. Cole was about to speak when Kai jumped in.

"Why exactly do you think we would willingly trade our lives for the principal?" Kai asked with a weird smirk. "I, for one, hate teachers and principals in particular. When I was in school they made my life miserable. I am sure that this one is no different; arrogant, hypocritical, unfair when it comes to discipline, and in general trying her best to make life miserable for innocent students."

The serpentine leader was taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, and in his surprise, he let go of the principal. As soon as his grip loosened, the vice principal took full advantage of the situation and ran away. Skales looked towards the ninja with anger. "So, you will not trade yourselves for the lady, but how about this school?" he asked, causing the ninja to jerk back slightly. Skales continued, "I have my Constricti in position under the main supports of the school- if I give the word, the entire school will collapse, killing everyone inside."

Cole glanced towards the school yard, hoping that Karina had made good on his promise. Sure enough, students had gathered in orderly lines, and there was almost no chatter- but Cole quickly noticed, with a sinking feeling in his heart, that only half the school population was gathered- he needed to play for time. He shot Jay a look, praying Jay understood the urgent message.

_Thank the gods—he got it!_ Cole mentally cheered. Jay stepped forward, causing Kai to look at him in surprise and Zane to shrug, as if saying: _You better have a reason for trying to kill yourself…_

"Alright," the blue clad ninja said, "we surrender and will give ourselves up, but it has to be one at a time, and there are several things you should know first. Number 1: When you have us in your position and are bringing us to Garmadon, you must make sure we are thoroughly captured, you see, or we could escape again. You have to… uh…." Jay trailed off. His face was a picture of terror, because for the first time in his life, he could not think of a single thing to say. Luckily (or unluckily), Zane jumped in.

"Yes, we all have special skills that allow us to escape certain things," Zane said. He unexpectedly shoved Cole forward, causing his brother to stumble, and a pair of Constricti to take hold of Cole.

"You see, our leader is the elemental ninja of earth, meaning you cannot imprison him anywhere near earth or he can bend his way to freedom. Even chains are no guarantee for him, because he is so strong - you will need to make them extra thick," Zane said, speaking off the top of his head.

"Oh, why thank you Zane, just tell them how to beat me, why don't you," Cole groaned sarcastically.

"And Kai," Zane continued, ignoring Cole. "Kai can use his fire bending to get out of wooden cages, and even heat metal to melt it. However, several inches of dense rock _should_ stop him. Jay is the ninja of lightning, so metal is his weakness, as lightning and metal are incompatible," Zane said quickly.

"Zane!" Kai and Jay exclaimed in an angry hiss.

"As for me," Zane went on, "there are about fifteen steps needed to subdue me: first, you-"

"You are just stalling now," Skales said with an angry snarl.

"Yes, yes I was. Thank you for noticing," Zane said with a smile. "Everyone is out of the school by now, meaning you just lost your advantage."

Skales looked over the roof and saw that everybody was out of the school, causing him to growl in rage. The ninja took his moment of distraction to attack the snakes, this time using their throwing stars, throwing needles and Manriki chains*, as well as their fists and feet.

When the snakes saw they had no chance of winning, they signaled to something. The ninja didn't have to puzzle on what it was for long, seeing as a whirring sound was rapidly approaching to their left. The ninja risked a glance to the direction of the sound and, to their dismay, saw a RaptorCopter coming towards the school. As soon as the helicopter-turned-snake-escape was close enough, the Serpentine jumped onto their escape. The bullies ran as fast as they could back down the staircase, but Ryan didn't go with them. Instead, he ran to Skales and asked: "Can I go with you?"

The snake chuckled evilly, "No!" as he shoved Ryan off the roof. He was only saved by grabbing onto the edge.

"Should we rescue him?" Zane asked quietly.

Kai looked at him questioningly, but before he could answer, Karina ran up the stairs to join them. The boys grinned, seeing that she was smiling happily. With an unspoken signal amongst the ninja, the boys quickly spun back into their school clothes, hoping Ryan didn't see them from the roof.

Ryan called out hopefully, "Are you going to rescue me?"

Karina glared at the fingers that were grabbing the lip of the building. "Why should we?! You have done nothing to put you in our favor," she said, remembering all the bulling she went through: being late for class for having to pick up her contents of her stolen backpack, being smashed into the walls, getting her lunch spilled with not enough money to buy another one, and much more.

Cole sighed, then said to Ryan, "One day, even the mightiest of tyrants may find themselves at the mercy of those they 'ruled over', so a wise person would make sure that those under them should have a good reason to save them or help them if they find themselves in such a place. Otherwise, if the perfect opportunity arises, those people that were bulled and abused might decide to return the favor of cruelty. So…," Cole paused before quickly continuing his speech to the bully. "…what have you done that would make us want to save you, Ryan?"

Kai jumped in, asking, "Why don't we leave it up to Karina to decide?"

"I don't know what I have done to make you want to save me," Ryan grunted. "I have been pretty much a jerk to you guys."

Kai smirked and nodded, but before he could say something rude to Ryan, Cole elbowed him hard in the stomach.

Ryan continued, "I admit that I helped the snakes invade; I knew they wanted the ninja, so I lied, saying that the four new students were the ninja, because I hated you and I wanted to get revenge. So, we made a deal: they get the ninja, and in return they attack anybody I want to teach a lesson. I never expected that the real ninja would show up and ruin everything. Now I see I have no legitimate reason for you to save me. I have been wrong and cruel, and I see that now."

Ryan let out a strained grunt as his fingers began slipping. Not a moment after, he yelled in fear as he lost his grip and began to fall. His cry of terror ceased when his fall came to a sudden halt, his left hand held tightly by Cole and his right hand held by Karina. With the help of the other three new students, he was pulled to safety.

"Maybe that's all anybody needs: a second chance," Karina told him softly.

As soon as Ryan was back on the relative safety of the roof, he glanced at the four new kids and Karina, and then tried to make a run for it. His mad dash was put to an abrupt stop as he ran directly into the not so warm and loving arms of Principal Laya, who had arrived on the roof just in time to hear his confession.

"I think it would be a good idea if you were to come with me, Ryan. We have a lot to discuss," she said as she grabbed his arm.

"Good job you five," she called to the five heroes of the day. She marched off, pretty much dragging Ryan down to the principal's office.

"Wow. It feels awesome to have saved the school and take down a bully in one afternoon. I think I should become a ninja, if this is what your life is like all the time," Karina said with a smile.

"Believe it or not it can get a bit tiresome," Jay argued lightly. "There was this one time that I-"

"Oh boy, now we're gonna be here all night," Kai said to Cole and Zane, who nodded in agreement.

"He does tend to give rather lengthy summaries when it comes to stories," Zane agreed with a half smile.

"I heard that," Jay mumbled, shooting them a dark glare. However, he quickly resumed his monologue of the times that being a ninja was tiresome.

**AreiaCananaid- **Does this chapter make it easier for you to forgive me for being late? I hope it does! Anyway the next chapter will be about the gymnastic meet! Oh, Jaycee and I will write another story together, I'll leave her to explain our story ideas to see which one you would like to read next. I'm so evil, aren't I Jaycee? I make you do the grunt work me because my fingers are a bit sore from non-stop typing ;).

**JayceePhantom- ** Well my fingers are sore too. I just got over being sick as heck for Wednesday and Thursday. I have a plan, next chapter. Here's a part I've been composing:

_Kai flipped backwards through the air, stuck the landing, and turned it into a backwards somersault. He stood up and struck a pose._

_Cole, Zane, and Jay held up signs of paper with the number "10" scrawled on them._

_Kai grinned._

I just figured it would be pretty funny . Please use it AreiaCananaid lol :D

**DEFINITIONS: **

**Throwing stars: **Zane's Golden Weapon. Don't know what it is, look up "throwing stars" on Google Images.

**Throwing needles: **do the same thing on Google Images as throwing stars- I'm tired.

**Manriki Chain**: Manriki chains were about a foot and a half long, they were made of small links of metal chain linked together; at the ends of the chain were two small balls (around 1 inch wide and tall) of solid metal. They were very deadly when used correctly in close combat.

**Phalanx formation**: an Ancient Greek warfare tactic where the soldiers lined up in a rectangular formation, forming an unbroken line of shields, with archers behind them and spears (amongst other projectiles) bristling over the top, waiting for fire.

**OH RIGHT! **Here are the story ideas... I think these are it…:

**STORY ONE: **Garmadon shrunk the ninja so they were one inch tall and they have to go on a crazy adventure to get the cure to turn them back to normal and to stop Garmadon with his evil plot (which is still being determined at the moment lol).

**STORY TWO: **Garmadon turned the ninja into animals, ones that represent their spirit, and now the ninja have to go on a big quest to turn back into humans and save Nya, Lloyd, and all of Ninjago!

For the record, both of these were AreiaCananaid's ideas. I'm busy with practicing the Lion King music in band (yes, I'm in band, and yes, we play Lion King music) with the 3rd band director while the primary directors are on a field trip with the high school band to one of the Disney parks. I KNOW! I wanna gooo…. I can't wait until I'm a senior (high school takes Disney trip every four years…). But yeah. Tell us which one you want to see, and we'll discuss it!


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